Questions raised over delay to 'critical' report into Mount Isa air quality

A report measuring the impact of pollution from Mount Isa Mines on air quality in the city was meant to be made public five years ago. Is the mine burying bad news or is there another explanation for the delay? David Lewis reports.

It is a document that could shed new light on the extent to which toxic emissions from Mount Isa Mines are contaminating the air the city's residents breathe—but it is nowhere to be seen.

The air quality report is tied up at the moment in a discussion between the author of that report and a peer reviewer.

Mike Westerman, Glencore

According to the mine's own timetable, the highly-anticipated air quality report was supposed to be completed sometime in 2011.

While there is still no fixed date for its release, Glencore's Mike Westerman said he was as disappointed by the delay as anyone else.

'We would like this report out and we would like to demonstrate confidence in the community that we act on the recommendations as we've done with the previous two reports. The fact we can't do that doesn't sit well with us.'

But he rejects any suggestion the mine is attempting to bury bad news, adding he did not believe the report – which he has not seen – would contain any explosive revelations.

'If I had to look at what would come out of that report I would suggest it would be similar to what came out in the land report, which is, yes, there are emissions from the mine, some of them do end up in the community, and they're low impact or low risk to human health.'

The Lead Pathways Study, which the mine has described as 'independent', has been conducted by the Sustainable Minerals Institute in Brisbane.

Although it is attached to the University of Queensland (UQ), the institute receives the bulk of its funding from the mining industry.

Research partnerships 'may lack transparency'

Professor Kerry Carrington, who has studied the relationship between the universities and the resources sector, said these partnerships have the potential to interfere with the integrity of the academic process.

'That means that research is not independent. It then may lack transparency,' she told Background Briefing.

'Results—if they're not favourable to the corporation—may be silenced, undermined, never seen, they may just be buried.

'There is no necessary impost on those reports to become public and in other cases we know that researchers who have gone into contracts with corporate giants, particularly in the mining sector, have in fact forfeited their intellectual property and their moral rights and in those instances, they really have no say over what happens to their end product, whether it will ever see the light of day or not.'

In a statement, the Sustainable Minerals Institute's Principal Research Fellow, Dr Barry Noller, stood by the research.

'It is common for universities to conduct research on behalf of companies or other external groups,' he said.

'UQ has processes in place to protect academic freedom and ensure the integrity of the research conducted.'

He also dismissed claims the protracted peer review process was unusual.